Having just celebrated our six month anniversary Post-Navy, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the differences between Navy life (military life) and civilian life.
Leaving the military was never something we seriously considered until The Man was just shy of his nine year mark. We had already done two dutys and were looking at choices for our third when bam! it hit him upside the head. A little voice that said "hey there is life outside of the Navy, life where you can see your kids everyday, you've given them almost ten years and maybe we can move on and be proud of that, somewhere else."
That little voice turned into a roar and before we knew it, we were civilian job hunting, attempting to turn ten years of military experience into a civilian resume (OMG, you have no clue how hard that was, just try googling military resumes! Civilian employers can't read them darn things!) and attempting to ascertain life outside of the Navy.
That was not easy. For instance, we were leaving behind:
insurance for the whole family, at no cost
reduced daycare costs on base
the uber grocery store where everything is about 20% cheaper than civilian stores
the sweet department store , read above line, same thing
military housing: reduced rent in great military only communities, people in the same boat as you, no pun intended
life insurance on The Man
However, we were also leaving:
6 month plus deployments with contact only via email or occassional phone calls
Duty nights every three to six nights where The Man was required to spend 24 hours on the ship away from us
Missed holidays, birthdays, and special occassions like oh I don't know, births!
Navy having total control of The Man and therefore the family
Having six months of civilian life under my belt, I will say this: it was the best move for us.
We were able to pick any location in the US and move there. We were able to find great housing in a good neighborhood and get the kids involved into the local scenes. I breath very deeply every morning when I get up cause I smell his aftershave. He may already be gone for the day but he was there and there is more proof in the dirty clothes on the floor. Cause he is there at home everyday!
He is able to be more involved in our family, he picks up kids, drops off kids, runs to the grocery store (can't recall him ever volunteering to go to the commissary) and does the errands on his days off. He is not just passing through our house anymore or as Duchess used to say "visiting". He lives there full time. He can be found taking the family shooting, fishing or just hanging out. He even cleans and cooks some too.
Yeah, we are truly loving civilian life. Now a better question is would we trade our military life for the past ten years? NEVER. That was an experience of a lifetime and I'm taking so much with me from it.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
New Paths
